Equilibrium
by Backgroundnoise
Summary: Sometimes the Pie Maker couldn’t help but wonder who was suffering in trade for all his happiness with Charlotte Charles.


Disclaimer: I don't own Pushing Daisies or Lee Pace… Sad but true.  
Rating: K+  
Summary: Sometimes the Pie Maker couldn't help but wonder who was suffering in trade for all his happiness with Charlotte Charles.

Pairing:Ned/Chuck  
Dedicated to my very patient and very lovely Winnie, thank you.  
Title: Equilibrium  
By Lylou

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_-"…But as often happens when one celebrates, the universe is quick to even score."_

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Since he was only a little boy Ned had learned that the universe has its own fragile and unpredictable mechanisms to keep his particular equilibrium.

There were big, invisible and unshakable cosmic rules that keep everything strangely neat and turning.

For instance, every time that it rained hard for hours and lightening hit the asphalt, the sun appeared in the clear, blue sky for the next two days without mercy.

Because that was the way in which the universe adjusted his business: One storm was equal to two days of sunny weather.

For that reason, every time he resuscitated a flower, a peach or a childhood sweetheart something else had to die instead. Sometimes it was wonderful and sometimes it was absurd but it was always cruel and unpredictable; it was an insurmountable constant and, in the course of the years, Ned had learned to accept it and to live with that.

Equilibrium.

That was what it was all about.

That was why sometimes, the Pie Maker couldn't help but wonder who was suffering in trade for all his happiness with Charlotte Charles.

If everything happened and spun by applying the "simple" rule of action and reaction, if one resurrected mother was equal to one stricken dead father and if one storm was equivalent to two sunny days, that means that to keep the cosmic equilibrium, someone was being miserably unhappy to compensate all his happiness with the girl named Chuck.

That idea haunted Ned sometimes and could keep him awake at midnight for hours; because by applying the rule of the storm and the sunny weather, it was evident to Ned that someone out there had to suffer a warm death every time he saw Chuck entering in the same room as him, or that there was someone out there in pain every time he listened to Chuck saying his name as nobody else in world did it, also worried him to have taken unhappiness to many, many innocent people out there every time that Charlotte Charles pressed her lips against his through the plastic wrap, not to mention all the other wonderful and delightful things they did using gloves and extreme care… Ned calculated one night they had brought misery and grief to half of the city.

And even more dangerous and lethal were the thousands and thousands of little wonders that the Pie Maker didn't know were possible before Charlotte Charles.

Equilibrium.

Apparently some months ago, the universe had decided that he had been unhappy and lonely for too long and had pushed Chuck into his life. Again.

Now she was in the bathtub and all the warm steam in the bathroom smelled like her strawberry shampoo.

They used to do that; actually, that was one of those small and wonderful things that according Ned risked misfortunes to other people in the sake of equilibrium: Chuck taking a bath at night and spilling her magic in their bathroom, while he was completely dressed and seated in the blue floor tiles next to her, with his arm dangerously leant in the cold bathtub border and looking longing and happily at her; of course, it had been her idea since the first time they did it, then he had put his typical "we-shouldn't-but-I-now-you-are-going-to-persuade-me-anyway" face on and had followed her to the bathroom.

That was one of those things that he didn't know was possible before Chuck; of course, taking bath at night wasn't something especially magical, but Ned never had thought that someday there will be someone who would fill up his bathroom with steam and strawberry smell at midnight, in the same way he never imagined that she would smile like a little girl when she saw her fingertips wrinkled after almost an hour in the warm water, or that he would be that comfortable talking warmly for hours and smiling shyly and happily at her, that much, that the next day Ned used to feel the muscles around his mouth aching sweetly at him for the still lack of habit in being happy.

It wasn't exactly as if they both were in the same tub but it was enough; and besides, the Pie Maker had decided a long time ago that he wasn't going to miss even one moment of a naked Charlotte Charles.

-Do you think they miss me?

Her voice sounded a bit sad in their bathroom and Ned's mental treat was interrupted.

He looked at her, with some dark and damp locks falling across her skin and with her legs bent and pressed against her chest and her head leant in her knees looking at him and waiting for his answer:

- I'm sure they do. You are…you are definitely not easy to forget.

Ned smiled at her felling a bit childish and embarrassed saying it out loud -as if he was telling her some naughty little secret- and looked away from her naked shoulders for a moment, basically to be able to think fairly coherently again.

"_I have __spent the past__ twenty years trying to forget you and __now__, you are naked inside my tub."_

-But what if some day my aunts forget about me?

Ned raised his gaze and looked at her for a moment, Chuck could feel his breathing rushing slightly and his eyes studying her intensely and daring for a moment, in that mesmerized, possessive and lovesick way that he used to do when he thought she wasn't looking, so much and so brutally sure, that she couldn't help but think where had gone the shy and stammering man she knew.

-That's not going to happen Chuck, but anyway… I promise to remember you.

She smiled brightly at him, in that way that always makes Ned feel dangerously normal, and rested her head upon her arm in the border of the bath tub, deathly near to his hand.

The ends of her hair were sunken and her long fingers were making circles in the warm water.

-Then I promise to remember you too.

Her voice sounded a bit distant and slightly sad when she continued speaking, just paying attention to the circles in the water:

-…It is not as if I didn't want to be here, with you, because I want… It is just that sometimes, I can't help to feel as if I am… an impostor.

-An impostor?

-Yes… as if Charlotte Charles doesn't exist anymore, as if she had been the one who died in that sailing and then, Chuck had appeared opportunely.

Ned looked at her, with that mix of worry and love in his wide open eyes, and spoke gently and a bit scared in that bathroom full of steam:

-You don't like Chuck?

-Most of the time. Do you like Chuck?

-…Absolutely.

She smiled at him finally, grateful, amazed, relieved and a million of things more and stopped paying attention to the ripples in the water and looked straight at Ned for a moment before speaking softly:

-Just for you to know… you are the best part of being Chuck.

Equilibrium.

Ned was sure that someone across town was feeling very, very miserable right now; because he was smiling madly happy and felt the world spinning vertiginously fast and suddenly flooded with a million new colors, steam and strawberry scented shampoo infecting delightfully all his senses. It is said that smells can bring us hidden memories or get attached forever to a feeling or a memory, and maybe Ned didn't know then, but for the rest of his life, happiness would be always attached to that strawberry smell shampoo and hot vapor.

-What?

Chuck asked in a playful tone and smiling at him with one of her very sweet and very bright smiles, Ned nodded with a charming half smile in his lips and looked at her with that spark of hope and love in his changing eyes that used to feel to her as if he was seeing her again for first time after twenty years:

-…Nothing…

His voice sounded warm and strangely close to her but after a few seconds, his nice features changed and the Pie Maker wasn't smiling happily anymore; he tore apart his suddenly aloof gaze from her, concentrating in the apparently interesting blue tiles of the floor, and continue speaking in a low and vacillating voice:

-… It is just that sometimes, I can't help feeling… scared.

Charlotte Charles moved slowly inside the tub and looked at him; she frowned delicately and asked with her eyes fixed on him:

-Scared? …Scared of what?

He looked at her small and dripping hand in the border of the tub, dangerously close to his, Ned half closed his eyes a bit, trying to find the correct words in his steam and strawberry shampoo crammed mind, but still without looking at her, and spoke in his trade mark blend of shyness, charm and guilt:

-That day, at the funeral home, when I… you know.

I just… I wasn't thinking.

Chuck expression changed fast and her beautiful features turned suddenly extremely sad and dark.

-Are you saying that you regret what you did…? Or what you didn't?

Ned looked at her finally, as if he was processing her words and after a few seconds he spoke in an extra fast, extra guilty and extra stumbling tone, feeling miserable and stupid:

-Oh! no, no, no please… No, never.

He smiled nervously and looked at her, trying to read her expression and continued, slow and gentler this time:

-…What I was saying is that when I brought you home, with me, well… let's just say that I never knew that it would be… like this.

Chuck looked at him still confused and scared that she wasn't feeling how the water of the tub was getting colder and colder every second; she spoke slowly and with a tone of sadness in her voice, feeling tears forming fast behind her eyes:

-Like this as in "_I never should have waked her_", like this as in "_It makes me miserable having her around everyday_" or like this as in "_I wish I could just touch her and finish with…_

-Like this as in "_I never thought that my life could be … like this"_

Ned's voice sounded so low, sure and warm that for a second, she almost could imagine his breathing into her ear while she was underneath his body. She had become really good with imagining lately.

He continued talking gently, fast, charmingly and a bit embarrassed, as usually, and completely unaware of her mental train:

-I'm scared because I can't help but think that someday I would have to pay for all… this; for being here, now, with you naked in the tub, for all the times you laugh in the kitchen, for every time that I see you in one of your small nightgowns, for the way you cry watching old romantic movies even if you have seen them a thousand times, for your clothes hanging in the closet next to mine, for the gratiné noodles "ala Chuck"… for the strawberry scented shampoo… And I, I didn't make the rules: one storm is equal to two days of sunny weather so… it is the universal law apparently.

-Yeah… apparently.

Chuck, finally understanding him, looked at his worried and yet sure expression and smiled brilliantly in spite of the hot tears she was feeling behind her eyes.

"_Tears of love_"

She realized then that it was something else completely new for her, and that she would never have been able to have it if she wasn't alive right now, in that precise bathtub and precisely next to him; and suddenly Charlotte Charles understood the millions and millions of coincidences, seconds chances, big and small mishaps in her life and all the invisible and untouchable mechanisms of fate had used to take them to that precise moment, to make it possible for them to be there that precise rainy night.

And intuitively she knew that it was one of those very strange, very painful, and very wonderful situations about which she had read in a book in her far away gone armchair that smelled of dust, damp, naps and memories and which had been one of her favorite places in the world for years, now she had other favorite places, magic, love and a turn of fate have make it possible, so, who was she to complain about it?

Chuck moved lazily inside the tub and turned off the faucet under the careful and worry gaze of Ned and continued half smiling happily, knowing that his eyes were fixed in her naked back and enjoying every second of it; she looked at him finally, still smiling and Ned chuckled sexily and warmly, and suddenly his worried features relaxed and turned shy, charming and confident, as if for a moment, he was that nine year old boy she once knew.

And it was at that exact moment when she thought "_Maybe it would be worth the while to die for a kiss from him now"_

But instead of that, Chuck smiled brilliantly at him and whispered:

-…Sometimes I'm scared too, Ned.

-Are you…? And what do you do then?

Ned's voice sounded half intrigued and half playful in that warm bathroom and Chuck loved every tone of it.

She didn't say a word, just smiled at him, submerged her hand in the hot water for a moment and took it out the next, without tearing her gaze from his, Chuck moved her hand slowly towards him and held it a few centimeters above his hand still resting on the tub border; warm, transparent and small drops fell directly from her hand to Ned's and he looked at her and smiled gently, happy, lovesick and thousand things more while his heart pounded fast and alive, and suddenly, Ned didn't care anymore if they would have to pay some day their particular happiness and love cosmic bill; as if making others grieve and suffer wasn't a high price for feeling warm drops falling on his hand.

When she spoke, low, warm and playfully, Chuck's voice inundated all the corners of the bathroom, and instinctively, Ned was sure that it would remain there for a very long time, latent upon the blue tiles and reminding him exactly how happiness was:

-When I'm scared… I look at you.

Equilibrium.

That was what it was all about.

The end

Comments are love.


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